


like the beat of a drum

by MokuK



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, disclaimer: i have no idea how hospitals work, let them be happy and safe from fucking ryan kane, post episode 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8763871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MokuK/pseuds/MokuK
Summary: Immediately after the events of episode 8. Philip follows Lukas to the hospital to reassure himself that there was still a heartbeat underneath the warm spread of blood and cold damp skin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is what i'm doing instead of studying for finals. watching eyewitness, screeching at my computer screen until my roommate asks me if i'm okay, and writing fic instead of editing the draft for my creative writing assignment due tomorrow.
> 
> i didn't think i could hate ryan kane more than i already did, but i do. and i'll hate him until my dying days, the fucking child-shooting pedophile murderer i hope he gets what's coming for him
> 
> (i should add a disclaimer that i watched this online and didn't see the hospital preview until a few hours afterward so uhhhh pretend he's not in a coma)

He can’t feel a heartbeat. There’s a rapid thrumming underneath his palm, but none of the steady beats that he should feel from Lukas’s chest.

Philip hunches over Lukas, eyes wide and fixed on the red spot staining Lukas’s shirt. It looks almost as though he’s spilled spaghetti sauce on it, but the reek of copper assaulting his nose and the warm blood coating his hands fight to convince him otherwise.

There’s no heartbeat, and suddenly he’s ten again, cradling his mother in his too-small arms, trying to protect her from her then-boyfriend who’s drunk and high and god knows what else, trying to hurt her even more than she’s hurt herself. She’s not responding, not smiling or brushing his hair out of his eyes or holding his hand. It’s the pills’ fault.

Except this time, it isn’t, because he tried to keep Lukas safe from those. He stopped Lukas from getting that sleeping medication or those painkillers, but he still got them from Rose. But they hadn’t been the problem this time. It had been that resounding crack of an unmistakable gunshot, catching them off-guard during a moment of respite.

Philip chokes out a breath, arms tightening around Lukas’s torso. He can hear the FBI agent calling in the distance, can feel her trying to take him out of his arms. “No,” he says, ripping her arms away. “No, let go!”

“We need to take him to the hospital,” she says, keeping her voice calm with the all-too-familiar tone of authority. “Otherwise he’ll bleed out.”

“He can’t die,” Philip says, looking up at where her voice is coming from, and oh, she’s blurry through tears he didn’t realize were cascading down his cheeks. “We’ve made it this far, he can’t die now.”

He sees her blurry figure nod. “Okay, but I need to bring him to the hospital, got it?”

He nods, pressing his cheek to Lukas’s soaking wet hair and wrapping his arms around Lukas’s cold damp neck. He can’t feel a heartbeat. “Can I go with him?”

“Sure, sure. Can you help me bring him to my car?”

Philip nods, letting go of Lukas. As he stands, there’s a cold fear that seeps up his body, like letting go means he’s leaving Lukas to die. The water before him looks back, muddy brown and rippling, like it’s promising that it’ll take away what’s precious from him this time, for sure.

The water choking in his lungs hadn’t killed him, hadn’t kept him from moving forward and living despite everything telling him not to.

Lukas will survive. He has to, Philip tells himself. And if he doesn’t, he’s going to hunt the man from the cabin down with his own bare hands and make sure he doesn’t survive this.

\---------------------------------------

The trip to the hospital is hazy in Philip’s mind. He faintly remembers lifting up Lukas like he was nothing more than a sack of flour and settling him down in the seat of the truck. He’d held Lukas on his lap, cradling Lukas’s head against the nook of his shoulder. The lake water had seeped into his own clothes.

They must have been quite the scene for the emergency room: two teenagers, one shot and the other in a state of shock, accompanied by an FBI agent barking out orders. Philip remembers trying to follow Lukas into surgery, but they’d kept him out and had needed to hold him back because he’d been struggling and yelling Lukas’s name.

And here he is, sitting on a cheap hospital chair that smells like tobacco and weed, wrapped in a thin blanket that does nothing to keep him warm. The floor tile gives him something to think about so he doesn’t fixate on the image of Lukas dying that keeps slipping into his thoughts. He’s found a picture of a seal in one of them already.

“Are you here for Lukas Waldenbeck?”

Philip’s head shoots up. The question was directed at the FBI agent – Kamilah, he thinks her name was. “Yes, how is he?” she says before he can.

“He made it through alright,” the surgeon says, pulling down her face mask and snapping off her latex gloves. “He’s currently asleep if you’d like to go in and see him.”

“Yes,” Philip says, stumbling to his feet. “Please,” he adds.

Kamilah side-eyes him, and he knows she’s suspecting something, but he doesn’t care. “His father is in the waiting room as well. I’m sure he wants to know how his son is doing.”

“Can I go in first though?” Philip asks, glancing down at his hands, which have been shaking from how tightly he’s been holding the blanket around his shoulders.

The surgeon smiles at him sympathetically. “Technically I’m supposed to allow family in first, but since you’re here, go ahead.”

A shudder rattles his body as he sighs. “Thank you.”

The room Lukas is in smells like antiseptic and artificial sterility. He’s lying on the bed, still and pale, but breathing. Philip nearly trips over himself in his hurry to get to Lukas’s side. He collapses into the chair by the bed and grabs hold of the hand without the IV in it, pressing his forehead to Lukas’s shoulder. He can feel Lukas’s chest rising and falling and rising and falling and sobs a little in relief.

He lies there until he thinks he falls asleep. There’s a real blanket around his shoulders and the sky is dark outside the window when he feels the hand beneath his stirring, and he wakes with Lukas.

“Lukas?” he whispers, leaning into get a better look at Lukas’s face in the dim lights.

The corners of his mouth are twisted down in a grimace, and the furrow between his brows grows more pronounced as his eyes flicker open. “Philip,” he rasps, then coughs.

“Shhh, take it easy,” Philip says, gripping his hand tighter. “We’re in the hospital. You got shot while you were on your bike, and I—I had to pull you out of the water. That FBI lady took us to the hospital, and that’s where we are now.”

Lukas’s eyes fly open, homing in on Philip. “If I got shot, then that means that—“

Philip nods. “It means he knows who you are and where you are, but we don’t need to worry about that right now, _please_.”

Lukas must hear the crack in his voice, because he settles back into the pillows with a wince. “Are you okay?”

“I should be asking you that,” Philip breathes shakily, pressing his cheek against Lukas’s shoulder, relishing in the warmth rushing into him from that point of connection. “You got shot.”

“Yeah, I did. But you also had to watch me get shot.”

“Yeah,” Philip murmurs. “But you’re okay, and that’s what matters right now. Fuck that man from the cabin, fuck whatever Helen or the FBI are planning, nothing of that matters right now. I’m just glad you’re here.”

Lukas hums, and then laughs softly.

“What?” Philip asks, glancing up to see Lukas’s face turned away. “What’s wrong?”

“Kiss me.” Lukas is looking at him now, eyes serious. He nods his head to urge Philip on when Philip looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

So he does. Philip leans in and gently presses his lips against Lukas’s. It’s dry and chaste and it feels a little like coming home. Lukas smiles against his lips, and Philip pulls away.

“What is it?”

“Guess what,” Lukas says, grinning at Philip with the softest smile he’s ever seen. “my chest hurts like a mother fucker, but so does my stomach.”

It takes Philip a second to register, but immediately after the burst of worry, he grins too, falling back against Lukas’s shoulder. “So does mine,” he laughs into the papery hospital dressing gown. “So does mine.”

He can feel Lukas’s heartbeat against his cheek and against the palm of his hand. It beats steady, pounding out _alive, alive, alive_.


End file.
